JOURNAL OF PATHOLOGY, VOL.
180: 1 11-1 12 (1 996)
BOOK REVIEWS
Pathology of the Liver.
MACSWEEN,ANTHONY,SCHEUER,BURT and PORTMANN.
Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1995. No. of pages: 784.
Price: E195.00. ISBN: 0 443 04454 6.
In this third edition of what has become one of the classic
textbooks in specific organ pathology, foreword and preface
mention that scientific progress and changing views lead to
revised nomenclature and that this edition therefore remains ‘a
progress report rather than a final dogma’. In this respect,
there is nothing special about the book: almost by definition,
no scientific text will ever be the final dogma. The book is
special, however, in its often undogmatic approach, in its
comprehensive character, yet without an undigestible mass of
text, in the immense wealth of information that has been
systematically brought together in this volume and in the
uniformly high quality of the production, exemplified in
the illustrations.
The approach chosen by the equatorial team is classical in
the positive sense of the word: systematic, with chapters on
anatomy and histology to start with; infections, inflammatory
and circulatory disorders in the middle; and neoplastic disease
towards the end. The volume ends with chapters on liver
diseases following disorders in other organ systems and on
the pathology of the transplanted liver. A brief chapter on the
liver biopsy concludes the volume. This final chapter is not
particularly useful. It does put liver pathology into a clinical
perspective but, for example, the discussion of indications,
contra-indications, and complications of liver biopsy is so brief
that it cannot be regarded as a reference text, quite unlike the
rest of the book.
The addition of this last chapter may well reflect a need felt
by the editorial team to support the use of the book in daily
diagnostic practice. For with all its quality, a criticism of this
book may be that in spite of its wealth of information, it gives
limited systematic support to the diagnostic histopathologist
with a liver biopsy problem in search of a solution. There are
few chapters in which common diagnostic problems are ident-
ified with the explicit aim of providing systematic support. An
example is the chapter on viral hepatitis, in which tables listing
features of diagnostic use would have been helpful. In this
respect, the chapter on chronic hepatitis ie exemplary, with
tables summarizing diagnostic criteria, especially in the context
of differential diagnosis, and schematic overviews of histologi-
cal characteristics and clinico-pathological correlations. The
chapter on hepatic injury due to drugs and toxins is another
excellent example. This is, however, not a serious limitation of
the book. The text is so comprehensive that it is hard to
identify any significant aspect of hepatobiliary pathology that
has not been discussed.
For a multi-author volume (almost 30 authors contributed),
the book is remarkably homogeneous in quality and approach.
The editorial team has to be complimented for this achieve-
ment. The text is always comprehensive and systematic and
mostly reads well. The figures are almost all in colour, well
chosen, and of uniform high quality. In some chapters the
figures are so numerous that it almost resembles an atlas. The
referencing is exhaustive: many chapters have more than 500
references and some get close to 1000. The references are
reasonably up to date; many references to 1993 papers are
encountered and even 1995 papers occur, although these
are referred to as ‘in press’. The index is exhaustive in addition
to being useful, which is not always synonymous.
0 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Authors and editorial team are to be complimented on an
excellent book, unsurpassed in its approach to hepatobiliary
disease. It is a must for the library of any group of practising
histopathologists and in spite of the price, it can be
highly recommended to every histopathologist who regularly
encounters liver disease. I’m convinced that most hepatologists
would also benefit from a copy.
FREDT. BOSMAN
Department of Pathology
University of Lausanne,
Switzerland
Diagnostic Cytoputhology.
WINIFREDGRAY(Ed.). Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh,
December 1995. No. of pages: 800. Price: L195.00.
Cytopathology.
4th edn. ZUHERM. NAIB.Little, Brown and Company, 1996.
No. of pages: 658. Price: E67.00.
The aim of Diagnostic Cytopathology is to provide an
easily accessible, comprehensive account of the diagnostic
applications of exfoliative and aspiration cytology in labora-
tory use at the present time. This objective has been fulfilled by
this excellent book. The editor has succeeded in the integration
of contributions from authors in the United Kingdom,
Europe, North America, and Australia, and there is a pleasing
uniformity of style throughout.
There are useful descriptions of diseases; criteria for the
diagnosis of specific lesions are listed, often in table form;
and the book is well illustrated throughout with good quality
Papanicolaou and Giemsa-stained preparations. In addition
to sections on all of the major organ systems, there are useful
chapters on organ transplantation and other situations
which are only infrequently encountered by most cyto-
pathologists. The book can function both as a comprehensive
diagnostic cytopathology text and as a bench book for
difficult cases.
The book compares very favourably with the diagnostic
cytopathology sections of Comprehensive Cytopathology by
Bibbo (W. B. Saunders, 1991) and with recent editions of Koss
(Diagnostic Cytology and its Histopathologic Basis, Lippincott,
1991). This book deserves a place in all cytopathology libraries
and will be of use to experienced cytopathologists as well as to
trainees in cytopathology.
The fourth edition of Cytopathology by Zuher M. Naib
contains new chapters on fine needle aspiration cytology
resulting in a change of title from ‘Exfoliative Cytopathology’.
This book is limited by a lack of colour photomicrographs, as
many of the black and white illustrations are difficult to
interpret. For readers in the United Kingdom, there is the
further problem of the different terminology used for cervical
cytopathology on opposite sides of the Atlantic. This confu-
sion is magnified by the wide range of terms included in an
effort to be comprehensive (extreme/advancedllate/marked/
high dysplasia or CIN 111) and the separation of in situ
carcinoma as a separate entity. Despite these problems, the
book does contain useful descriptions and the schematic
drawings of cellular abnormalities are still very helpful. This
book does contain some important insights into diagnostic
cytopathology but in a busy diagnostic laboratory, I feel that
112 BOOK REVIEWS
it would not be consulted very frequently, particularly when
there is such a high quality alternative available.
N. ANDERSON
Royal Group of Hospitals Trust
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Molecular ~ e u r o p a ~ h o l o g ~ .
GARETH W. ROBERTS and JULIAM. POLAK(Eds). Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1996. No. of pages: 189. Price:
E24.95. ISBN: 0 521 42558 I .
Molecular Neuropathology is part of the new series in
postgraduate medical science, based on the specialist training
programmes at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in
London. Their aim is to provide biomedical and clinical
scientists with a reliable introduction to the theory, techniques,
and clinical applications of each topic. Part 1 deals with basic
techniques, and Part 2 with applications.
Part 1 starts with a chapter on brain banks and is a useful
guide to those not aware of the problems associated with the
collection and categorization of post-mortem material. Since
this is the starting point for many molecular studies, it is
important that scientists wishing to use this material should
appreciate some of the difficulties involved. The ethical and
legal considerations are briefly dealt with, followed by discus-
sion of the need for accurate diagnosis and reliable clinical
documentation. Collection of material and the means of
distributing it to researchers are also covered. The following
three chapters on RNA isolation, the polymerase chain reac-
tion, and in situ hybridization histochemistry (ISHH) give
fairly detailed accounts of these basic techniques, as well as
variations and suggestions for optimization. A reader without
a basic knowledge of molecular biology would probably find
some difficulty in following some of these sections and would
need first to become familiar with some of the terminology and
principles involved. The chapter on ISHH is somewhat narrow
in scope as it concentrates entirely on applications to psychi-
atric disease and the use of radioactive probes. Many workers
now favour the use of non-radioactive labels, which are more
compatible with histological techniques and can be as sensi-
tive, with optimized detection systems. Common detection
methods are used both for non-radioactive probes and for
immunocytochemistry techniques, which are covered in the
next chapter, and a broader view of ISHH could easily have
been presented. The final chapter on autoradiography deals
essentially with ligand labelling studies and could again have
been broadened, to advantage, by covering the use of these
techniques in areas such as ISHH.
Part 2 addresses the application of molecular techniques to
neurological disease. The chapters on human prion diseases,
cerebral amyloidoses, and transgenic animals are very pertinent
and give good accounts of current knowledge at the molecular
level and of the methods used to produce transgenic models.
The topics of intracerebral transplantation and image analysis,
while of interest to many neuroscientists, could be considered to
fall outside the remit of molecular neuropathology.
Overall, this book is a useful source of information for
postgraduate students and other workers wishing to gain
an understanding of molecular neuropathology. Certain chap-
ters, particularly those concerned with applications, would
also be of value for teaching the molecular aspects of neuro-
science to undergraduate science or medical students. A com-
prehensive reference text covering this field has been long
overdue.
L. C. COSBY
Queen's University
Belfast, Northern Irehnd